


Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friend

by josiepug



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Lie Low At Lupin's (Harry Potter), Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but Gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:55:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24366169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiepug/pseuds/josiepug
Summary: There is a war to be fought, but things haven't been entirely worked out since the last one. There is also a Hippogriff, a puzzle, and an impending trip to Tesco's.
Relationships: Sirius Black & Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friend

**Author's Note:**

> This is a result of the Great Quarantine Reread, and I simply had to write it. Please enjoy.

Sirius Black held tight to Buckbeak’s back, his long hair whipping out of his face, the two of them soaring high above the clouds. Sirius didn’t dare descend any lower. Cornelius Fudge had been in the room with him that very night and been none the wiser, but that didn’t mean that his luck would hold. It would be one cruel twist of fate too many to be caught now, when he finally had something to do.

Lie low at Lupin’s for a while, Dumbledore had said. Get the Order back together again. Despite himself, Sirius felt a rush of excitement. Finally, a chance to fight once more, a chance to put right everything that had gone so very wrong thirteen years ago. Well, not everything. Sirius thought of Harry’s face in Dumbledore’s office, white and numb. Sirius longed to turn right around and go back to him, but he knew he couldn’t. He would try to convince Dumbledore to get Harry away from the Dursleys as soon as possible, but for now he had a different goal.

Buckbeak’s head dipped, and they dove lower, into the clouds. Within seconds, Sirius was drenched. He wished desperately that he could cast a warming charm on himself, but it was all he could do to cling to the Hippogriff with his numb fingers. Hippogriffs, like owls, did not need addresses or directions to find the people they were looking for. That was lucky, because Sirius could make out next to nothing in the swirling darkness. What felt like hours, but was probably only a few minutes later, they emerged from the cloud, flying low over a lightly forested area. Sirius could not even have said where in the country they were. The North, probably, given how long the flight had taken, but he had never actually been to Remus’ home. His friend had flatly forbidden him from visiting when Sirius had gone on the run. It was to protect him, Sirius knew, but he couldn’t help but wonder if there wasn’t another reason. Lupin had every right to hate him. He hadn’t seemed to in the Shrieking Shack, not entirely, but those more positive feelings could easily have worn off in the last year. And here Sirius was, to deliver more bad news.

Buckbeak landed with a graceless thunk, and Sirius half slid, half fell off of his back. Through the darkness, Sirius could just make out a rundown shack across the field. The lights were out. 

Out of habit more than anything, Sirius transformed into Padfoot. He trotted towards the shack. Buckbeak, who was far more polite than most humans, hung back a little. Sirius barked, just once, when he reached the door.

He saw a light come on through the window and a moment later, Remus Lupin appeared at the door, wand out. He looked down at Sirius, unsurprised, though anxiety was obvious in his lined face.

“You shouldn’t be here. Come in,” Remus hissed urgently. Buckbeak pawed the ground, drawing Lupin’s attention. “My apologies,” he added to the Hippogriff, and bowed deeply. Buckbeak returned the gesture almost at once, and then padded past Sirius and into the house. The creature took up an inordinate amount of the tiny cottage. Remus shut the door almost on Padfoot’s paw. Between one step and the next, Sirius was human again.

Remus rounded on him at once. “What’s happened? Is it Harry?”

“He’s back, Remus,” Sirius said. He could still hear the dog around the edges of his voice. He cleared his throat. “Voldemort has returned.” 

Remus, already too pale, went white. For a moment they just stared at each other, lost for words. Then, “Harry?”

“Alive,” Sirius said shortly, remembering the blank look in his godson’s eyes while he lay in the hospital wing. He had wanted so badly to tell the boy that it would get easier, but he knew it wouldn’t. Sirius had been seeing the burnt shell of Godric’s Hollow for years.

“ _Aguamenti_ ,” Remus murmured. Sirius was confused until he realized that he had his wand out and was making tea. It was such a typically Remus gesture that Sirius smiled despite himself. 

A few moments later, Remus was pushing a cup of tea (no milk, two sugars) towards Sirius. He took his own tea black, normally, but tonight he added sugar from a nearly empty bowl. The sort of luxury that Remus probably found comforting. Sirius, who had never had any use for such small things, felt faintly jealous. Both of them sat down at the rickety kitchen table. “Tell me everything,” Remus said immediately, hoarse despite the tea. 

Sirius did. 

It took a long time to relay the conversation between Harry and Dumbledore, Fudge’s reaction, Snape’s part, and Dumbledore’s instructions. It was only a few hours ago, but it felt like a lifetime. By the time Sirius finished, his tea was sitting ice cold and untouched and his throat hurt badly. He hadn’t spoken so much for a long time. He drank the cold tea down in one long gulp and really looked at his old friend for the first time in a year. Remus was even thinner than he had been, his hair now more gray than brown. He looked, Sirius noted grimly, like he had been the one in Azkaban. 

Sirius longed to say something, anything, but he found himself unable to move. Once his mind locked onto something, he would pursue it with single-minded determination, but for now, there was nothing. The silence stretched. Remus refilled the tea. Sirius drank it too hot, just to feel the burn on the back of his throat.

“Cedric was a good boy,” Remus said eventually, his voice very distant. “I thought he might like to teach someday. Very bright. Very kind.”

Sirius swallowed. “Good flyer, too. Almost as good as Harry.” During the match, his attention had been focused on Harry of course, but he remembered the Hufflepuff seeker too. Cedric Diggory. How many boys who zoomed around that Quidditch pitch would end up like him? And James. One moment they were flying, the next, nothing more. Sirius felt a sudden burst of need, the need to get out there and kill the people who did this. They were same ones who had sat around his mother’s table when he was a child, drinking sherry and laughing about genocide. And they were still out there, while a new generation’s children died.

Remus sensed the change in his mood, as he’d always been able to. “The Order is reforming. We will do what we can,” he said calmly. Sirius opened his mouth to protest—

“Ouch!” Sirius whirled around. Buckbeak had just nipped him. The Hippogriff had hardly closed his beak, but Sirius’ shoulder still burned. “What?” Sirius snapped.

Buckbeak reared back and pawed dangerously. 

Sirius held up a placating hand. “Woah, there, what is it? Are you hungry?”

Buckbeak fluffed up his feathers in a yes. Sirius glanced to Remus, who had not moved from his spot at the table. Had not even reached for his wand. He shrugged at Sirius. 

“Right then. How near to Muggles?” Sirius asked, eyes firmly back on Buckbeak, who was barely tolerating the time it took to have this conversation.

“Just under thirty miles.”

“Excellent. You’re free to hunt then, Beaky, but for the love of your own feathery hide, don’t get caught!” Sirius moved to open the door, and Buckbeak trotted out. He threw one last haughty look over his shoulder at Sirius, as if to scold him for the impertinence of suggesting that he would be stupid enough to get caught. 

The moment the Hippogriff was gone, Sirius threw himself back into his chair and let out a deep sigh, rubbing his shoulder. “That bloody creature’s going to bite my head off one of these days. Sirius Black, wanted mass murderer, apprehended by an angry Hippogriff for not providing enough rats.” 

Remus shook his head. “I thought you were rather good. You’ll give Hagrid a run for his job one of these days.”

“Shut up, Moony. You’re at least as good as me with creatures. We could’ve started a menagerie,” Sirius said, enjoying the image in his head.

“I could’ve been the star attraction.” There was a hint of a self-deprecating smile at the corners of Remus’ mouth. Sirius had missed that look. James had made him laugh regularly, but it was always Moony who surprised him. He had thought of those smiles a lot, in Azkaban.

“All our dreams gone to dust,” Sirius said, and his voice was lightly ironic, but Remus’ smile faded, and Sirius cursed internally. He was never certain whether it was Azkaban or what had happened before that had broken something in him, but there was no reason to burden Remus with it. Merlin knew he had enough troubles of his own without Sirius adding to them. 

Sirius stood up abruptly and took his mug to the sink. He could feel Remus’ eyes on his back. “I ought to get in touch with the others. Dumbledore will want everyone together as soon as possible,” he said, trying the tap, but of course Remus didn’t need running water. Once, Sirius would’ve itched to see the inside of the broken Muggle system, but now he just resented having to put the dirty cup in the sink. He turned back to Remus, consciously keeping the frustration out of his voice. “Don’t know how Dumbledore thinks I’m supposed to do that. Owls are too slow, and I’m not risking the Floo after the way Fudge reacted tonight.”

“Do it the old way, then,” Remus said smoothly. He meant by Patronus. The way they’d used in the first War. That was impossible, of course.

“I haven’t got a wand,” Sirius reminded him, shooting another glare at the dirty cup before he returned to the table. If he’d been a better wizard, he wouldn’t have needed one, but Sirius had only begun to practice wandless magic when everything had fallen apart. And after the Dementors…

“Still?” Remus sounded surprised.

“Haven’t had a chance to stop by Ollivander’s,” Sirius said, more harshly than he meant to. “Sorry,” he added at once. 

“No, I’m sorry,” Remus said quickly. How could Sirius ever have suspected him of working for Voldemort? Remus, the quickest among them to forgive. Even after everything. “I could…“ Remus began, but he sounded like he desperately didn’t want to, and Sirius knew why. Remus’ Patronus was a wolf. Not a werewolf, a true wolf. Still, Sirius remembered how white Remus’ face had gone the first time he’d created one successfully, right after they’d first joined the Order. Sirius hadn’t seen him make a corporeal one since.

“No,” Sirius said firmly. “Here.” Without thinking, he reached across the table to where Remus’ wand was still sitting after making tea. His hand was inches away from it when he stopped. Remus had always been protective of his wand, terrified that if something happened to it, he wouldn’t be allowed another one. The wand snapped by the Ministry had already been Sirius’ second, but Remus’ was the one he’d been given when he was eleven years old. Sirius looked up into his old friend’s face, silently asking for permission. 

Remus hesitated only a moment, then nodded almost imperceptibly. Sirius picked up the wand.

Feeling the solid wood in his hand, Sirius felt an uncharacteristic flash of doubt. Doing magic with another wizard’s wand was always more difficult, and Sirius wasn’t entirely certain that he could even cast a Patronus after Azkaban. But he had committed now, and he wasn’t about to make Remus do it. Sirius closed his eyes, seeing Harry and Hermione, bobbing up and down on Buckbeak outside the tower window, giving him another chance.

“ _Expecto Patronum,_ ” Sirius said fervently, and the ghostly version of Padfoot burst into being. Sirius felt a rush of relief, then quickly brought his wand, still trailing silver threads, to his throat.

“Voldemort is back. The Phoenix rises again. Await instructions.” Then he lowered Remus’ wand, and the Patronus took off through the closed front door, a blur of magical light speeding off into the darkness. Sirius smiled slightly. Remus’ wand had accepted him more easily than he had expected.

“I’m impressed,” Remus said, when the Patronus had gone.

“Thanks, Professor,” Sirius said drily, but he couldn’t deny the rush of warmth that accompanied the compliment. Then his stomach gave an unfortunate rumble, and Remus’ gaze sharpened.

“When did you last eat?” He asked, sounding so much like his mother that Sirius felt a pang of nostalgia for the old Lupin cottage. 

“Keep your hairnet on, Moony. I’m quite used to rats.” He said it like he was joking, but Remus knew him too well.

“Bloody hell,” Remus muttered and stood up. He rummaged in the cupboards for a moment, then turned back around. “I, erm, have to go to the shops,” he said, and he was actually blushing. 

Sirius barked with laughter. Remus flinched. “Come off it, Moony,” Sirius said, though, seeing the look on his friend’s face, he wished he hadn’t laughed. “Dumbledore will be happy to get you more gold if you ask him. Though the idiots at the Ministry _still_ haven’t locked my Gringotts’ account, so actually you should just take mine. The interest has been accruing rather nicely over the years. Azkaban does wonders for longterm financial health.” Sirius grinned.

“Don’t be stupid,” Remus said, but he had relaxed again. He appreciated Sirius’ sense of humor more than Buckbeak did, at least. It was so good to see Remus. Two years ago, Sirius had thought he would die in Azkaban. And now he was here, at a tiny kitchen table in a ramshackle shack in the middle of nowhere with one of his best friends. 

“You’re not alone, you know,” Sirius said, and the words were out of his mouth before he’d thought them through. Remus’ smile faltered once more, and he looked away.

“It’s been awhile,” Remus said, failing to keep his tone casual. Sirius’ happiness evaporated as quickly as it had come. Why could he never think before speaking? 

“I’m sorry,” he said, for the second time that night.

Remus shook his head. “It was worse for you.”

“Maybe.” The years in Azkaban blended together into a mostly unending wash of misery, interspersed with occasional news from the outside world. He didn’t know how he’d survived. Had wondered, at times, whether he had. But the blessing, though it felt like a curse tehn, had been that he could do nothing about it. Meanwhile, Remus had had to live, had to find food, had to transform alone, without his friends to help him. Thinking that Sirius had killed James. Remus had had to watch as the world decided to move on from the War. At least in Azkaban, no one expected you to move on.

“I might be the only one but,” Sirius began, finding that his voice had gone hoarse again, “I’m glad that it’s happened. Not for Harry, obviously, but—did people really think he would never come back? The sort of evil doesn’t just go away.” It was strange, to talk about evil in this little cottage in Yorkshire. But that was as it had always been too. That was how Voldemort won, by tainting everything. Sirius was so lost in remembering that final, horrible year that he would now do anything to bring back that he jumped when Remus spoke.

“You said that Peter was there. He was the one to bring Voldemort back after all.”

Sometimes Sirius thought that he might as well as been a Death Eater considering how everything he did seemed to help the Dark Lord’s cause. Switching the Secret Keeper, bringing Peter out of hiding and then letting him escape. Next, he’d probably lead Voldemort right to Harry. “We should have killed him,” Sirius growled, knowing that his anger was misplaced but unable to stop himself.

“Dumbledore doesn’t think so,” Remus said, but he sounded quite as bitter as Sirius. It made Sirius feel better, to hear that he was angry too. He wasn’t alone anymore. And Remus was the only person who understood the rest.

“They all call him Wormtail now. It makes me shiver,” Sirius said, thinking of all the times the Marauders had called him that, about how excited Peter had been to receive a moniker along with the others. 

“It was never a very flattering nickname,” Remus pointed out. And he and James had teased Peter endlessly, although Remus never joined in. Had it been that? If they had been nicer to him, would James still be alive? Surely, it couldn’t be that simple. And yet…

Sirius yanked himself brutally back to the present. Falling down that hole would not end well for anyone. “Wormtail isn’t that bad. Padfoot doesn’t even make sense.” Despite his efforts, Remus didn’t laugh.

“I’m glad it wasn’t you.” Sirius’ heart dropped right back to where he had been trying to stop it from going. He didn’t want to have this conversation. He felt a surge of irrational panic, and imagined, for a brief moment, dashing out into the field and jumping onto Buckbeak’s back. Remus was still talking. “All those years, I could never make it make sense. You loved James too much.” 

But he hadn’t died for him. Hadn’t even killed for him. Sirius felt ill, the tea sitting uneasily in his shrunken stomach. He swallowed hard. “I don’t know why I thought it was you. It was madness, in those days.” He had always prided himself in knowing the right sort. As a baby, he had started screaming the first time he saw Bellatrix, who couldn’t have been older than seven at the time. He thought he’d always know. But he’d been wrong about Peter, and now they were here.

“No, it makes sense. I’m the best liar,” Remus said matter-of-factly, though Sirius could see the pain in his face.

“Only because you have to be.”  
“No,” Remus said shortly. 

There was a moment of silence.

“I didn’t think you were the traitor because you’re a werewolf,” Sirius blurted out. “The others did, maybe, but I didn’t couldn’t blame you. They hated you, after all, the Wizarding World. Even some of the Order. They were never going to accept you. I mean look at this.” He gestured around at the beaten down cabin. “You were one of the cleverest wizards in our year, and you can’t even show your face in society. Voldemort promised rights to the werewolves, and you had no reason to love us.”

Remus had gone white, and there was a tremble in one of his hands. “No reason to—how stupid do you think I was?” His voice rose with every word. “Voldemort hates everyone. He could promise Greyback good hunting, but to the rest he was just lying. I never, for one moment—“  
“I did.”

Remus looked like he’d been slapped. “What?”

“I would never have fought for him, obviously. But there was a moment, when everyone was dying, when I wondered whether it was worth it. Why should we be the ones to die for this? Why was it our lives that would have to be ruined? After Regulus—we were doomed, Remus, all of us. No matter what we fought for. And I would’ve given nearly anything just for him to leave us alone.”

“Not James and Lily.”

“No. And I shouldn’t have believed you capable of it either. I’m sorry.” 

“We’ve done more than enough penance, I think.” 

“Just in time for a new war,” Sirius said bitterly.

“It’ll be better this time. We’re more prepared.” Remus looked like he was trying desperately to believe it. He kept his head up, Remus did, but it was James who had been the optimist. He had always believed that love would win in the end. And maybe it would, but Sirius doubted he would get that far. He hadn’t been made for happy endings. 

“I certainly am.” Sirius said darkly. He couldn’t wait, actually, to fight them again. To blast Pettigrew into smithereens and wipe the oily smile off of Lucius Malfoy’s face. He was not afraid. What, after all, did he have to lose?

His thoughts clearly showed on his face because Remus said “Sirius,” in a very tired voice. 

Sirius bristled. “Come off it. What would you want to do, if you found Fenrir Greyback again?” 

Remus’ eyes shuttered immediately. “Arrest him,” he said flatly. Sirius stared for a moment, then understood. He leaned back in his chair, balancing on the back two legs, choosing how to say this.

“You do realize,” he said after a moment, “that savagery is human? Otherwise there’s no explanation for my family, is there?” Perhaps even then, there was little explanation. Sirius had always thought the house itself might have something to do with it.

Remus didn’t respond immediately. His expression was that of a man battling against himself. But then he said, in a very quiet voice, “I’ve missed you so much.” 

Sirius’ throat felt rather choked, but he managed to get out a hoarse “Me too.” Then, a little louder, “What do you say we stick together from now on? Until we see this through?” Whatever that meant.

“I’d like that very much,” Remus said, with typical understatement. Sirius smiled broadly, and Remus returned the grin. They were both, surely, a little more wary of promises than they’d been in their school days, but it was good to have something to look forward to at last.

There was a tapping sound at the window. Both of them jumped, looking around. The sky had gone from deep black to a sort of purple. It was nearly dawn. They had sat up through the whole night.

“That’ll be the Post owl,” Remus said.

“I’ll get it.” Sirius leapt up before Remus had a chance. This, at least, he could do without magic. 

“Thanks.” Remus yawned. “No point in sleeping now, I guess. Tesco’s will be open in a couple of hours. I can go get us breakfast.” 

“Suppose they don’t let dogs in there,” Sirius said half-heartedly as he found the small jar on the windowsill with a few knuts in it. 

“We can’t take chances. You should stay, anyway, in case there’s news from any of the others. Anything in the Prophet yet?” Sirius had a suspicion that Remus was trying to distract him from daydreaming about freely entering a supermarket, but he found that he didn’t mind. He scanned the first few pages of the paper.

“Nothing. Not even Cedric’s death, yet. Someone at the Prophet is making a killing on all this hush money.” 

Remus huffed in frustration, then stifled another yawn. “Fudge hasn’t had an independent thought in his life. What other people think, that’s all he cares about.”

Sirius could feel the resentment building in his chest again, but he continued riffling through the paper. “He’s playing right into Voldemort’s hands. Getting us to trust the wrong people. That’s always been his game.” Sirius knew that Remus was watching him, but he didn’t feel up to talking about it more right now. It was too late. Or early. Whatever. Instead, Sirius folded the Prophet onto the last page and returned to the table. “Fancy a crossword? I don’t know any of the music ones anymore. It’s tragic.”

Remus blinked once. “I’m afraid I won’t be much help there either. I haven’t got a stereo.”

Sirius sighed dramatically. “Well then, you can just sit and admire my brilliance. Ah, look. 1-down. Eight letters. Man and beast? Animagus. This’ll obviously be a good one.” He felt rather than saw Remus lean around the table to see the puzzle better. 

“17-across, ____ the Oddball. Uric,” Remus said after a moment.

Sirius filled it in. “Right you are. Somebody took notes in History of Magic. Who was it who wrote that awful cauldron love song again?”

In a few hours, while Remus was at Tesco’s, Mad-Eye would show up to talk to Sirius about rehabilitating 12 Grimmauld Place. While the Prophet remained ominously silent, wisps of silver magic would flit all around the country, slowly drawing together the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix. Elsewhere, Voldemort’s Death Eaters would set off, intent on bringing their own secret plans to fruition. 

Sirius knew what was coming. But as the sky continued to change from purple all the way to a light, clear blue, he filled in the answer for Least Popular Hogwarts Headmaster with a playful grimace. It was not too difficult to focus on the warmth of the sun slanting across the table, and the crossword puzzle, and the feeling of Remus leaning in to look over his shoulder. 

They were at war once more, and it was a beautiful day.


End file.
